… things we’re celebrating this season:

1. Our faith in a loving God who meets our every need when times are tough. We are not always grateful for the lessons we’ve had to learn, but we know where our trust belongs: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” —Jeremiah 29:11

2. A family life that not only keeps us busy but also allows us all to be together as much as possible. We’re also thankful for grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who help us juggle a tight schedule and meet responsibilities both at home and on the job.

3. Friends! We’ve kept our current ones (whew!) and made several new ones (yay!) — and reconnected with a few old ones, too (thank you, Facebook). All have inspired us in some way. We’re making it our goal to return the favor.

4. There’s no shortage of work to be done around here — and that’s a good thing! Shawn just took a new job as a project manager for a Tempe company, and he continues to do small handyman jobs on his own. Sonya is still a homeschooling mom and free-lance writer/editor, as well as a tutor and writing teacher.

5. And then there’s school. Kellen (11), Kerrick (9), Kennah (6) and Keillor (4) still do most of their learning at home, but the three oldest also attend two enrichment programs each week for extras like art, history, Latin, music, P.E. and science. It definitely keeps us all hopping — and our brains popping!

6. We actually hope to play more in the near future. Sure, Shawn and the boys have hiked and camped with the Scouts, and Sonya and Kennah have tried to squeeze some girl time in here and there. But we’ve resolved to soon do more of those things that refresh our spirits and keep us going. We hope that’s your plan, too!

Merry Christmas from the Hemmings Half-Dozen!

The seventh-grade homeschooled students I tutor once a week for a program called Classical Conversations are learning to draw the entire world from memory this year — and label at least 200 countries, capitals and features. It’s no small feat! They’re halfway there, so I thought I’d give them this little memento to help keep up their momentum. I photocopied a world map onto 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper and cut it into half-inch horizontal strips, making sure I preserved one strip in particular with the words “The World” printed on it. I played with that strip to form a circle (secured by tape) that would neatly fit the inside diameter of the clear glass ornament. Then I curled each of the remaining strips around a pencil, smoothing the curl out a bit before pushing each strip individually into the ornament and inside the band formed by the first strip. Each time I pushed in a new strip, I shook the ornament and all of the strips naturally curled around each other to form a jumbled globe shape that I thought looked really fun. My handy husband shortened up and sharpened some Christmas pencils and drilled a hole through each one so that I could tie it on — along with a little jingle bell — with embroidery thread. I hope my students enjoy the ornaments. I liked them so much that I made one for our tree, too.

Merry Christmas! For many, many reasons, we did not send cards out to friends and family this year. But we absolutely LOVED all of the cards we received anyway—so much that we covered the inside of our front door with them! (Look closely, and you might see yours somewhere in our collection!) Well, almost covered anyway. (See the space at the bottom? There’s a little room left if yours didn’t make it into the mail yet.)

I didn’t have a lot of time for blogging this holiday season, but as a throwback to my Christmas carol countdown of last year, I thought I’d share one of my new favorites this year—God Bless Us Everyone, sung by Andrea Bocelli from his My Christmas CD:

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I hope you find it meaningful, too!

When Shawn and I got married in 1995, my sweet friend Mary Velgos gave me a recipe titled Simon and Garfunkel Chicken—a name inspired by the singing duo’s 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. (Even if you’ve never heard the lyrics to the song Scarborough Fair, I’ll bet you can guess at least four of the ingredients in this recipe!) At the time, we had no idea that it would become the go-to special-occasion dish for our family. But that’s exactly what it is. So it wasn’t a surprise when I asked Shawn what we should have for Christmas dinner and he requested Simon and Garfunkel Chicken.

While I have been able to alter the recipe to make it gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free for Kellen, I haven’t yet made it using pastured chicken. That’s because I’d have to separate and debone the breasts from whole chickens myself, and I haven’t yet tackled that task—although I hope to someday. The other main ingredients—homemade mozzarella cheese, pastured eggs, bread crumbs from a sprouted-grain loaf or batch of tortillas—have been easy to fit within real-food parameters. I typically serve Simon and Garfunkel Chicken alongside corn (organic frozen kernels, in this case) and garlic mashed potatoes.

Our Christmas dessert was a real treat (though decidedly not a real-food one!) that the kids and I put together on Christmas Eve. Using a gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free recipe for sugar cookies and a set of star-shaped cookie cutters in five sizes, we baked about 50 stars and then stacked them into five Christmas-tree towers using green-tinted royal icing as our “glue” and multicolored sprinkles as “lights.” To make each tree, we used two stars in each of the five sizes. We iced each cookie individually and added it to the stack, varying the position of the points and sprinkling the edges with every layer. They were fun to make—and even more fun to eat!

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister blog carnival hosted by www.gnowfglins.com. To link to today’s Tuesday Twister on that site, click here.